Irie FM 2023 Music Awards Set For March 1

Reggae radio Irie FM has announced that the nomination process for its 2023 Music Awards is currently underway.

The awards ceremony is set for Wednesday, March 1, and is part of the station’s bid to continue its mission to honour Jamaicans in music.

Irie FM, which is Jamaica’s leading radio station, said in the statement that nominations will be cast by Grove Broadcasting and other radio and TV personalities, industry players, and journalists. 

Last year, Queen of Dancehall Spice, scored the biggest at the awards.   The Cool It artist, who had been nominated in six categories, had won three accolades, including the Female Deejay of the Year.  An Irie FM fan favourite, she also copped the Listeners Choice Award.  Additionally, her Go Down Deh collab with Shaggy and Sean Paul, was also voted the Best Collaboration for the Year.

Masicka and Yaksta were also big winners.  In addition to being the Male Deejay of the Year, Masicka’s 438 album also copped the Album of the Year award, while Yaksta copped the New Artiste of the year and shared the Singjay of the Year award with Dexta Daps.

The Irie FM Awards was the brainchild of veteran broadcaster and music producer, Big A, who had been a longstanding advocate for a programme to honour Jamaica’s musicians.   

The first awards ceremony was staged on Valentine’s Day, February 14, in 2006.  Back then, Big A led the organising team, and also did so again in 2007, and 2008.

Last year’s staging was a new iteration of the awards, which was halted for more than a decade, before being re-launched during Reggae Month on Irie FM’s Wake Up Call and E-Buzz Programmes, in association with the Ministry of Entertainment.  

Irie FM was the launching pad for the careers of some of Reggae and Dancehall’s biggest names, including Sean Paul, Buju Banton and Sizzla.  

The “Roots Rocking Reggae Radio” station, was responsible for changing the music landscape in favour of Jamaican Reggae and Dancehall musicians.

At its outset immediately challenged Jamaica’s oldest radio station Radio Jamaica (RJR) and the now defunct government owned Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) whose formats were dominated by American Rhythm and Blues and became the number one radio station in Jamaica.

Irie FM began test transmissions in July 1990 and officially went on air on August 1, 1990, playing traditional Reggae with a bit of Dancehall music and a theme of “Reggae in the morning; Reggae in the evening; Reggae at night time”, this amid critics predicting that it would be impossible to sustain a 24-hour Reggae music station.

Dr. Dennis Howard, one of Irie’s original broadcasters and its first programmes manager, in an interview with South Florida Caribbean News in 2020 during the station’s 30th anniversary celebrations, had also recounted that not many people in the music fraternity had faith in a Reggae radio station succeeding in Jamaica.

Dr. Howard had said that even when some major players in Reggae and Dancehall were told that there would be a “Reggae station and we need your records and need you to give us your catalogues, some said it wouldn’t work”.

Despite the naysayers, at the end of the year, the Ocho Rios-based radio station was fully embraced by artists, producers and music administrators who benefited from steady rotation of their songs which, prior to that, were largely ignored by RJR and JBC, in favour of North American content.

Irie FM incorporated more Dancehall, Howard said, after he insisted that with the genre’s growing popularity among Jamaican youth, it made sense to begin giving airtime to artists such as Shabba Ranks, Papa San, Tony Rebel, Tiger and Cutty Ranks and others.

Donovan Germain, the iconic Penthouse Record label producer, later admitted that he was among those who doubted that an all-Reggae station would have a fighting chance in Jamaica.  He went on to be among the numerous music producers whose productions benefited from extensive airplay on Irie FM, with his label being given a 15-minute weekly slot on Irie hosted by Big A.

“Irie FM really changed the radio landscape in Jamaica because you heard more local content,” Germaine had told SFLCN.